Hope you guys get as much out of this video as i did! Truly the easiest way to learn about such a complex issue! Make sure you check out their website to continue to reduce your waste impact on the world. – M

As I am sure most of you know that two days ago Apple released their latest iPhone; the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, and ill be completely honest with you I wanted one, not because there is anything wrong with the iPhone5 that I have, it is just not as new as it once was. The slim sleeker finish, the bright vibrant colours of the new outer body, the fingerprint scanner wow I could go on and on. But before I went on anymore I paused, wow I have been overcome with the method behind what all these large companies want, I have been brainwashed into a consumer driven life! I am helping the cause that I am trying to stop.

Waste of all types leaves a tremendous mark on the environment, however since the turn of the industrial revolution ewaste has shown to be an ever increasing problem that currently sees no nearby end.

Ewaste is defined as waste that encompasses all old electrical appliances either in a state of disrepair or simply obsolete. Including everything from fridges and microwaves to mobile phones and computers.

So I set out. I spoke on social media. Calling for people’s input asking them how many phones they had gone through in their life. I was amazed! Before I tell to the amount id just like to clarify that these figures show a rough proportion of the population. Ranging from ages 10-75 through different religions/races/demographics. I asked 175 people via social media (Twitter/Facebook/Instagram) and a random people that were willing to answer when i walked up to on the streets and asked them a short survey in regards to their own personal usage when it came to mobile phones.

The average person from the survey that I personally conducted resulted in an average of 6 phones per person! 6 PHONES! thats pretty damn crazy to believe when you remember that the first phone only came out 40years ago.

So what happens to all these phones we use. The United States alone threw away 150 million old phones in 2010. We would all like to trick our selves into believing that when we get a new phone we recycle the old one. you know to those mobile muster centres? hands up who actully does that? yeah like I thought not all that many of us. Even phone Manufacturing giant Nokia has discovered through recent surveys that as a society only 9% of us actually recycle our mobiles. Containing hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants and arsenic our disregard for mobile phones being the fastest growing type of manufactured garbage in the world.

In what we life to think far far away, in impoverished places like Agbogbloshie, Ghana; Delhi, India; and Guiyu, China, children pile e-waste into giant mountains and burn it so they can extract the metals — copper wires, gold and silver threads — inside, which they sell to recycling merchants for only a few dollars.

Children around the age of 6, smash computer batteries with mallets to recover cadmium, toxic flecks of which cover their hands and feet as they work; Their mothers spend their days bent over baths of hot lead, “cooking” circuit boards so they can remove slivers of gold inside. This is only the start of the human ramifications that our obsessive spending is resulting in. Scientists agree that exposure poses serious health risks, especially to pregnant women and children. The World Health Organization reports that even a low level of exposure to lead, cadmium and mercury (all of which can be found in old phones) can cause irreversible neurological damage and threaten the development of a child.

remeber all those hazadous chemicals I mentioned back up there (ill help you out a bit they were lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants and arsenic) what do you think i will happen if we dont properly recycle them… imagine this, imagine the chemicals seeping into the ground; combining with the water. That water has the ability to grow your food, the wheat crop that prodcues your bread, or the grass to feed the cow for your meat. But wait a second dont we eat these things, so does that mean that we are eating these chemicals too? Yeah your right. SimplyThis is called toxic burden build up. This causes all sorts of massive nurological deformities, cancers and magnified effects in infants.

Just so you don’t panic and think that we have no hope and all else will fail wait! There are alternatives! Somephone business have models that could be beneficial to producers, users and the rest of us. For example, manufacturers could sell products complete with prearranged recycling service or subscriptions that made it possible, for example, for phone user to exchange old units for new ones rather than throwing them away. Under a product service system model, companies recycle old units and repurpose core components. Xerox uses a similar model for its photocopiers, without impact on sales or profits. There is always something that we can do to stop the nightmares of what will come!

I have hopefully attached a video (technology isn’t my strong point if you haven’t already guessed). When I stumbled across it I thought it was the most amazing message of hope that we as the consumer have! The correct disposal of ewaste is of vital to being able to achieve a sustainable future. It is us consumers we need to demand better end-of-life options for our high-tech trash; if manufacturers and government fall down on the job.

What happens to obsolete computer or the animal skins from meat factories?

The majority of people couldn’t answer whether these items are recycled or landfilled. A recent article in The Hindu gives some insight into what happens to these items in Bholakpur, a small area of Hyderabad, and it is a surprisingly important industry. Much of what might be considered trash in the Hyderabad area plays an important role in in the community being recycled by families, and resold on the secondary market.

Once inside (Bholakpur), the animal skins go to one of the 200 skin processing units and the plastic and iron scrap to one of the 500-odd plastic or 300-odd iron scrap dealers. There it is sorted and either cleaned up and resold, or ground, melted and transformed into raw material for industrial use. Thus giving new life to waste and also earning a living for the people…

hi all!
Long time no speak! I’m sorry about that. I’ve been inundated with questions sent in by you guys and I’ve been researching things about them. I’ll post my answer by the end of the week

But before then I have a massive question for you? How many phone are in your house? One per person? Two? Three? Send me a message, private or comment bellow! You’ll find out why i ask in my next post!

its estimated that there is a area roughly the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is a swirling mass of plastic trash. Each year millions of birds, mammals and fish die from plastic because they either eat it or get caught in it… 90% of Albatross chick carcasses contain plastic
while turtles die as a result of plastic blockages in the intestines and make the animals float so they can’t dive for food

despite sea tempretue rise many researches and environmental organisations continue to believe that plastic and rubbish in the marine environment continue to be the number one threat. with 8 million items of marine litter estimated to enter oceans and seas every day

did you know that on average we use 168 plastic water bottles each per year. that’s a huge amount already but when you times that by the amount of people we have in the world that makes it ridiculously crazy!
personally I felt that I lacked knowledge when it came to the use of plastic bottles of water. are they really that bad for the environment as we make them out to be…

so I did a little research for you! I hope the stats are as frightening to you as they were to me

Approximately 1500 bottles end up in land fills and the ocean…….every second of the day! with the worst part being that it takes 700 years before plastic bottles start to decompose, with the potential to take up to 1000 years to fully decompose!

its silly though we complain about the cost of fuel reaching $1.50L here in Perth yet were more than happy to spend $3.50 for 500ml? can you explain the logic behind that? we spend on average $588.00 on water bottles each year

while we continue to use and abuse we don’t recycle the bottles – approximately 86% of plastic bottles aren’t recycled in USA, in NZ it’s 78%.

“Plastics are like diamonds………they really are forever” this is a quote on one of the websites that I looked at and after reading all the info I really began to understand why.

yet the other day i learnt about a first. a new technology placed in the centre of the Perth CBD that had the ability to dramatically change the way my local community abuse bottled water.

ProAcqua a trial technology used in forest chase. in which you get cheap tap, spring or sparkling water at a fraction of the cost… the only catch… YOU have to bring your own bottle! this could be the out mount franklin bottle you continue to reuse or that clunky metal cooler on you got from your dad all those years ago (thanks dad)

isn’t this fantastic!

i have a few questions to post for you guys though. is there anything like this where you live? any environmentally safe and hygienic water station?

and why is it that you think that we have such a poor recycling rate of water bottles? do you recycle yours?

So today I was walking to my uni class it was a beautiful rainy day. You could see the dark rumbling clouds continuously creep over the horizon, the breaking of the suns light through the clouds making the water droplets on the shrubbery glisten. It was perfect….. Or so I thought

the path began to be overcome with water. The sludge of breaking down rubbish flowing through the water. Fast food packets, plastic bottles, cans of cool drink littering and filling up the natural environment, slowly making there way down the drain into the marine environment. Isn’t it sad to see that. People just like you and me have done this no thought about the envionment?

I picked up 30 things! 30!!!! It was only a small stretch of road and everything! What has happened to the world that we are living in

Have any of you got any idea on how to stop this? How to stop ruining the beauty that can be found in anything and everything??

Yesterday I saw an empty can of cider, a paper cup, a soda can and lots of plastic previously used to store food. As well as some toilet paper, a couple of plastic forks and chocolate wrappings. It was all lying in a ditch, within throwing distance from car windows or hikers on the way to the mountains. It will probably take more than 500 years for all this to disappear on its own. If it disappears at all.

All the plastic that’s ever been thrown into nature, is still there. Plastic was introduced to us in the 1950s, and much of it is simply not degradable. It collects pollutants which can be spread in the food chain when animals confuse the plastic for food. Birds and animals can be hurt or die if they come in contact with this waste, which we’ve intentionally thrown away.